SpaceX launched its Starship rocket on its latest test flight on Thursday, but the spacecraft was destroyed following a thrilling booster catch back at the pad.
Elon Musk’s company said Starship broke apart — what it called a “rapid unscheduled disassembly.”
The spacecraft’s six engines appeared to shut down one by one during ascent, with contact lost just eight-and-a-half minutes into the flight.
Photo: AP
The spacecraft — a new and upgraded model making its debut — was supposed to soar across the Gulf of Mexico from Texas on a near loop around the world similar to previous test flights. SpaceX had packed it with 10 dummy satellites for practice at releasing them.
A minute before the loss, SpaceX used the launch tower’s giant mechanical arms to catch the returning booster, a feat achieved only once before. The descending booster hovered over the launch pad before being gripped by the pair of arms dubbed chopsticks.
The thrill of the catch quickly turned into disappointment for not only the company, but the crowds gathered along the southern tip of Texas.
“It was great to see a booster come down, but we are obviously bummed out about ship,” SpaceX spokesman Dan Huot said.
“It’s a flight test. It’s an experimental vehicle,” he stressed.
The last data received from the spacecraft indicated an altitude of 146km and a velocity of 21,317kph.
Musk said a preliminary analysis suggests leaking fuel might have built up pressure in a cavity above the engine firewall.
Fire suppression will be added to the area, with increased venting and double-checking for leaks, he wrote on X.
The 123m rocket had thundered away in late afternoon from Boca Chica Beach near the Mexican border. The late hour ensured a daylight entry halfway around the world in the Indian Ocean, but the shiny retro-looking spacecraft never got that far.
SpaceX had made improvements to the spacecraft for the latest demo and added a fleet of satellite mockups. The test satellites were the same size as SpaceX’s Starlink Internet satellites and, like the spacecraft, were meant to be destroyed upon entry.
Musk plans to launch actual Starlinks on Starships before moving on to other satellites and, eventually, crews. It was the seventh test flight for the world’s biggest and most powerful rocket.
NASA has reserved a pair of Starships to land astronauts on the moon later this decade. Musk’s goal is Mars.
Hours earlier in Florida, another billionaire’s rocket company — Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin — launched the newest supersized rocket, New Glenn. The rocket reached orbit on its first flight, successfully placing an experimental satellite thousands of kilometers above Earth. However, the first-stage booster was destroyed, missing its targeted landing on a floating platform in the Atlantic.
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
STEADFAST DART: The six-week exercise, which involves about 10,000 troops from nine nations, focuses on rapid deployment scenarios and multidomain operations NATO is testing its ability to rapidly deploy across eastern Europe — without direct US assistance — as Washington shifts its approach toward European defense and the war in Ukraine. The six-week Steadfast Dart 2025 exercises across Bulgaria, Romania and Greece are taking place as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches the three-year mark. They involve about 10,000 troops from nine nations and represent the largest NATO operation planned this year. The US absence from the exercises comes as European nations scramble to build greater military self-sufficiency over their concerns about the commitment of US President Donald Trump’s administration to common defense and
Cook Islands officials yesterday said they had discussed seabed minerals research with China as the small Pacific island mulls deep-sea mining of its waters. The self-governing country of 17,000 people — a former colony of close partner New Zealand — has licensed three companies to explore the seabed for nodules rich in metals such as nickel and cobalt, which are used in electric vehicle (EV) batteries. Despite issuing the five-year exploration licenses in 2022, the Cook Islands government said it would not decide whether to harvest the potato-sized nodules until it has assessed environmental and other impacts. Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown
RSS